Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation


Book Description

A detailed study of the engagement of state law with indigenous rights to water in comparative legal and policy contexts.




Indigenous Rights and Water Resource Management


Book Description

In an era of climate change, the need to manage our water resources effectively for future generations has become an increasingly significant challenge. Indigenous management practices have been successfully used to manage inland water systems around the world for thousands of years, and Indigenous people have been calling for a greater role in the management of water resources. As First Peoples and as holders of important knowledge of sustainable water management practices, they regard themselves as custodians and rights holders, deserving of a meaningful role in decision-making. This book argues that a key (albeit not the only) means of ensuring appropriate participation in decision-making about water management is for such participation to be legislatively mandated. To this end, the book draws on case studies in Australia and New Zealand in order to elaborate the legislative tools necessary to ensure Indigenous participation, consultation and representation in the water management landscape.




Legal Mechanisms for Water Resources in the Third Millennium


Book Description

Legal mechanisms for the management, development and protection of water resources have evolved over the years and have reached unprecedented levels of complexity and sophistication. This phenomenon is largely in response to the global community’s sustainable development agenda, to the challenges and limitations imposed by climate variability, and to scientific and technological advances. Bringing together diverse experiences from across the world, this book analyses existing water law and governance solutions, their shortcomings, as well as developments and trends in the light of changing circumstances. The legal mechanisms examined range from international treaties, agreements and arrangements on cooperation over transboundary water resources, to the onset of novel issues arising out of technological advances, and from domestic regulation of water abstraction and groundwater management, to domestic regulation of the water industry. The articles in this book were originally published in the journal Water International, following the XIV and the XV World Water Congresses of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA), which were held in 2011 and in 2015, respectively. The chapters originally published in Water International.




Community-based Water Law and Water Resource Management Reform in Developing Countries


Book Description

The lack of sufficient access to clean water is a common problem faced by communities, efforts to alleviate poverty and gender inequality and improve economic growth in developing countries. While reforms have been implemented to manage water resources, these have taken little notice of how people use and manage their water and have had limited effect at the ground level. On the other hand, regulations developed within communities are livelihood-oriented and provide incentives for collective action but they can also be hierarchal, enforcing power and gender inequalities. This book shows how bringing together the strengths of community-based laws rooted in user participation and the formalized legal systems of the public sector, water management regimes will be more able to reach their goals.




Water Governance: Retheorizing Politics


Book Description

This republished Special Issue highlights recent and emergent concepts and approaches to water governance that re-centers the political in relation to water-related decision making, use, and management. To do so at once is to focus on diverse ontologies, meanings and values of water, and related contestations regarding its use, or its importance for livelihoods, identity, or place-making. Building on insights from science and technology studies, feminist, and postcolonial approaches, we engage broadly with the ways that water-related decision making is often depoliticized and evacuated of political content or meaning—and to what effect. Key themes that emerged from the contributions include the politics of water infrastructure and insecurity; participatory politics and multi-scalar governance dynamics; politics related to emergent technologies of water (bottled or packaged water, and water desalination); and Indigenous water governance.




The Search for Environmental Justice


Book Description

This thoughtful book provides an overview of the major developments in the theory and practice of Ôenvironmental justiceÕ. It illustrates the direction of the evolution of rights of nature and exposes the diverse meanings and practical uses of the conc




The Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy


Book Description

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.




The right to water for food and agriculture


Book Description

The right to water emerged in the Nineties primarily as the right to domestic water for drinking, washing and cooking, and was closely related to the right to sanitation, both of which are seen as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. This study examines the question of the right to water for food and agriculture and asks whether such a right can be found in the right to water, or whether it is more appropriate to examine the right to adequate food for that purpose. Seeking inspiration from the right to adequate food and from other fields of international law, the study explores the content of the right to water for food and agriculture and then considers its implications for water law. Recognizing a human right to water – for drinking and household needs as well as for growing food – has implications for water allocation and sets limits to the extent that water can be allocated for other uses. In addition, it entails the respect for procedural rights and attention to important principles, such as the principle of non-discrimination and the rights of indigenous peoples.